The Stanford-Brown 2016 iGEM team is building biologically produced membranes and sensors for space exploration. Biologically produced materials have several advantages over traditional building materials; most significant for our purposes, they are light and self-replicating. These characteristics make biomaterials ideally suited for space exploration. One possible application for these materials would be a biosensing balloon, which could used in both terrestrial and extraterrestrial atmospheres to detect temperature and molecules of interest. Furthermore, biomembranes and biosensors have other applications both here on Earth and in space.

Exploration, both on Earth and beyond, requires putting instrumentation into atmospheres. Traditionally balloons have been ideal tools for atmospheric research: to track weather patterns, wind patterns, and to monitor atmospheric composition. Our team is working to create a biological balloon that is light, biodegradable, and both continuously and sustainably produced. To make the balloon itself, we are engineering bacteria to produce membrane polymers with different properties of strength and elasticitiy. To inflate the balloon, we are using algae to produce biological hydrogen to fill the balloon. To increase balloon durability, we are looking for biological ways to make our materials radiation resistant. Finally, to functionalize our balloon we are creating biological temperature and small molecule sensors. When combined to form a biological balloon these projects could create a completely novel category of scientific instrument: cheap, light, durable, and useful.